


Gather round the table, we'll give you a treat

by nevermindirah



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - College/University, BoNfire Week 2020, Booker is a proud combatant in the War on Xmas, Booker | Sebastian le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani Friendship, Christmas, F/M, Hanukkah, Jewish Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Meeting the Parents, Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani Friendship, age-appropriate age difference if that makes any sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28005717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevermindirah/pseuds/nevermindirah
Summary: Booker is going to meet his girlfriend's parents. His girlfriend who is Nile Freeman, the most unimaginably majestic goddess who has ever walked this otherwise godforsaken crust of a planet. His girlfriend who is two years younger than him despite them both being in their senior year, because she is a literal genius who started college at just 16. Her parents are going to murder him.Featuring a heavy dollop of interfaith friendship adorableness/nerdery and snarky Jewish Booker being a proud combatant in the War on Xmas (but not with Nile's parents).
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman
Comments: 21
Kudos: 91
Collections: Festival of Lights Fest





	Gather round the table, we'll give you a treat

**Author's Note:**

> BoNfire Week Day 6: Kwanzaa and Hanukkah, Cultural Exchange
> 
> Just a little self-indulgent treat I wrote in between closing out [one long fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315082) and [starting another](https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/632521989731565568/awesome-thanks-i-was-thinking-something-about)! Title from Hanukkah oh Hanukkah — Booker's favorite version, and mine, is [the Barenaked Ladies one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLqG3BqMC8E).
> 
> Shout-out to the BoN group chat for BRAD, the shitty dude who here Booker War-on-Xmases at and the traditional name of every random shitty dude who bothers Nile or Booker ever. Ugh, Brad!

"Whatcha doing for Christmas break?" the guy asks.

Booker's eyebrows flatten into a hard line. "Being bitter that I had to beg my professors for permission to skip class on Yom Kippur," he says.

"At least you'll be home for Hanukkah, geez."

"Ah yes, the laughably minor holiday that would be absurd to travel out of town for, that you've only heard of because it's convenient for you to think of as Jewish Christmas. Did you know we light things on fire at Hanukkah to celebrate the time ancient Jews slaughtered our Greek overlords so that we could observe our traditions in peace without interference?"

Nile and Joe catch this scene from across the dining hall where they've been standing awkwardly with their heavy lunch trays, scanning for Nile's favorite person in the universe.

"How far do you think he's going to take it this time?" Nile asks Joe.

"Sounds like his capstone presentation went really well this morning," Joe says. "I bet he's feeling ambitious."

"It's so hot when he gets like this," she says.

Joe makes a face. "You're so weird."

"Ok, mister 'my greatest ambition is to find the exact right mix of oils to paint Nicky's eyes,'" Nile says, and she'd elbow him but she doesn't want to slosh her seltzer.

"You know he's nervous about meeting your family, right?" Joe asks.

"Him and me both. My dad does NOT understand why I went to all the trouble of coming out just to bring home a boy a year later."

"Preach."

"Really?"

Joe gives her a shit-eating grin. "Christian hegemony has forced me to learn that term and therefore I shall use it whenever I like!"

"Nerds, the both of you. You're starting to sound like him."

"Damn right I am," Joe says. "I think it's one of my top five sexiest qualities."

"Yeah," Nile sighs. It's _dreamy_. Joe looks skyward for a moment — he knows he and Nicky are just as bad, but _honestly_.

"Ok," he says, "let's go interrupt him before he starts talking about the Christian Bible as cultural appropriation again. If it gets that far, you're liable to try fucking him in the middle of the dining hall, and nobody needs that."

"Yeah," Nile sighs again.

Joe doesn't bother trying to hide that he's laughing at her. But he really does have no room to talk. "How the fuck did we both end up with salty white boys who will go to battle at the drop of a hat?"

"It's a blessing and a curse to be this pretty," Nile says without looking over at Joe, because they're nearly to Booker's table now and she's latched onto his signal like a homing beacon.

Booker locks eyes with Nile. "Hey, gorgeous," he says, the annoying classmate who's still standing right there all but forgotten.

Joe claps his hand over his heart. "Hello to you too, handsome," he says, grinning, knowing full well that Booker is not addressing him. "Are you done playing with your food?"

Booker doesn't take his eyes away from Nile as he dismisses the target of his latest rant. "Look, Brad, someday you're going to learn to stop assuming everybody in the world is just like you, and your life will be better for it. Have a good winter break."

Nile leans in to kiss him, slow and deep and not exactly dining-hall appropriate. "Hi," she says.

Joe sits down with an exaggerated whine. "Some of us aren't going to see our boyfriend again for two and a half weeks. Sixteen days! Must you both torture me when I am bereft?"

"You'll survive," Nile says. She still hasn't taken her eyes off _her_ stupid white boy who _didn't_ get on an international flight yesterday leaving his boyfriend in their emptying college town _all alone_. Sixteen whole days without Nico, ugh!

Booker kisses her again, just a peck this time, and then he finally tears his eyes from his girlfriend and reaches for his afternoon coffee. "Joe, you thought more about what movie you want to see on Xmas?"

Booker's a lot saltier about Christianity than Joe is, and when they first became friends Joe found it a little rude sometimes. They all pray to the same God, right? It took a few rounds of explaining the concept of Jewish atheism and the long, brutal history of forced conversion for him to get why his friend was like this. Now when Booker does things like say Xmas out loud — pronounced "ex-muhs" — Joe just finds it funny.

Joe suspects that the entire Freeman family will be joining them for their Christmas afternoon movie this year. Booker's absolutely kidding himself with how worried he is about meeting Nile's parents — those two are perfect for each other and her mom and dad are going to love him.

It's been a joy to watch two of his favorite people fall in love. He feels like the luckiest man in the world to have found his Nicky so early into what he hopes will be their long, long lives together and he's grateful to get to witness Nile and Booker feel like the luckiest people in the world too.

Nile started college at 16, and now a 19-year-old in her senior year of college, she's finally traded in commuting from her parents' house for an on-campus apartment with her friends Dizzy and Jay who are just now starting college. Nile's been friends with Dizzy and Jay since they were running around in Brownie vests and they stayed close long after Nile's wunderkind academic fast track took her away from Girl Scouts.

Booker is _twenty one_ , he's practically already got gray hairs, and he's grumpy just like his favorite zaide. Some days the age difference feels like centuries. When Nile and Booker first met through Joe two years ago, none of them could go to bars, but Nile had to go home by 9 pm like a fucking child.

Her parents switched back and forth between strict and permissive as she excelled academically but struggled to find her footing socially. They didn't want their baby blackout drunk in strangers' dorm rooms, and understandably so. It took a lot of dinner table screaming matches before they found an equilibrium.

Nile's mother thought ROTC might help her make the transition from child genius to well-adjusted young adult, but her father put his foot down. His children will not go through what he had, not to pay for college, not for anything. So Nile was granted a curfew that got later every semester and increasing freedom to join the kinds of extracurricular activities that might help her make friends without the pressure to binge drink. Her parents encouraged her to invite her friends to their home.

When explaining the rapid succession of events the first time she brought Joe home for dinner, Nile prefers to use bullet points. It went approximately like this:

  * You've brought a boy home! He's so handsome!
  * He's HOW OLD.
  * You're not dating? But he's so handsome!
  * You... you have a podcast together. That's great, honey! So creative! Employers will love that, not that everything is about your resume, but you know—
  * You have a podcast about LGBT historical figures?
  * Mom, Dad, I'm bisexual.
  * [silence] [hugs] [silence]
  * Yes, I'm still going to church. We've talked about this, I like the choir director at the church closer to campus — no, I do not like the choir director like that, yes she's a lesbian, she's also fifty years old, not every queer person wants to have sex with every other queer person.
  * Yes, sex. I know what it is. I have all the medical information I need to protect myself when the time comes. No, the time has not come yet.
  * Is it because it's a gay church?
  * I swear to the precious baby Jesus that singing in a church choir directed by a lesbian did not make me queer.
  * It's making her a very confident singer though, she had a few solo lines last week!
  * That's great, honey! You go to church with her?
  * I'm Muslim, but I go sometimes to hear Nile sing.
  * Oh! I should have checked, the dumplings probably have pork, I'm so sorry—
  * Mom, it's fine, we get takeout from this place all the time.
  * Well, ok, if you're sure. Tell us more about your podcast. It's not affecting your studies I hope?
  * And then Joe and my father cried over James Baldwin for a solid hour and now he loves Joe more than me, the end.



Joe has a standing invite for dinner that he takes the Freemans up on at least once a month, occasionally without Nile in tow. Nile's parents have met people she's dated — the time her parents and Andy all came to hear her sing despite Andy being _that kind of atheist_ was... memorable, but then Andy got back together with her ex, and Nile's mom and Quynh got along like a house on fire at Nile's 19th birthday party. But Sébastien is the first person she's _bringing home_.

Nile's bracing herself for a much more intense round of "He's so handsome! He's HOW OLD????"

Just over two years will be nothing when they're older, but she knows why her parents worry. Booker worried too. Looking back on it, it's beautiful how extra careful he was, checking in at every step, communicating about his feelings with a precision borne of childhood trauma and the influence of his psychology textbooks. Her parents are going to love him.

When they first started dating, Nile wanted desperately not to be treated like a child. She had to learn how to assert herself without overstepping other people's boundaries. Sometimes she wonders if she'll ever be the right age for what she wants to do in life.

But right now she's enjoying a chill dining hall lunch with her boyfriend and her best friend. She turned in her last paper of the semester this morning and she gets a whole three weeks before she has to start in on actually reading all those books on the list her adviser approved for her Master's thesis. (She might start one of them early, but she can't help it, she loves books. And where's the line between reading for class and reading for pleasure when she gets to design her own reading list about the intersection of military history and art history?)

Tomorrow is the big first meeting. And then Booker will be returning Christmas Eve and staying with them overnight through the 27th for the first night of Kwanzaa. He will be sleeping on the couch. Nile will be sleeping alone in her childhood bedroom that looks far less childish than that of the average undergrad visiting home over break, because one of her agreements with her parents was redecorating the Pokémon explosion into a studio apartment fitting for a young adult starting her junior year of college.

Her "apartment" has a lock on the door and her parents said she doesn't have to go with them tonight to her brother's last hockey game of the season, so she will be sneaking Booker in while the house is empty for a taste of what he'll be missing out on over Christmas.

They get carried away, and Booker has pretty exceptional sex hair when a few hours later he meets Nile's parents a day earlier than planned.

All four Freemans square up to lovingly fight each other, but Booker blushes _so much_ and apologizes _so profusely_ , and Mama Freeman says, "Well, since you're here, you might as well stay for dinner." Booker insists on helping her cook, which is charming but also means Nile doesn't have backup while her father gives her the third degree.

Nile and her dad have a very tense five minutes essentially consisting of every way a father can phrase "Are you sure this is a good idea?" But Nile _is_ sure this grumpy sweetheart white boy is a good idea. Her dad knows that his baby girl has grown into a young woman as responsible and ambitious as she is kind. Now that she's indulged his parental need to make sure, they spend the rest of the hour before dinner is ready just enjoying quality father-daughter time. It takes them longer to decide on what record to put on than it does for her to confirm that this boy (who is _how old, young lady_ , because there was going to be no escaping that) is indeed worthy of her.

Dinner with Booker ends up somehow being way less awkward than dinner with Joe was. "Sébastien is a very nice boy, honey," her mom whispers in her ear when she gives Nile a big hug goodbye later that night.

This year the final night of Hanukkah happens to be Christmas Eve, and when Nile and Booker arrive for their overnight stay ( _which will still be happening in separate rooms, young lady_ ) they find that Mama Freeman has bought a menorah for the occasion.

"Why did you buy a menorah for just the one night?" Nile asks her mom quietly while the boys are talking loudly about something else over on the other side of the living room.

"Because we'll need it again next year, sweetheart," her mom says. And then _her mom winks at her_. "Sébastien, honey," she says to the _very nice boy_ across the room, "will you be my sous chef again tonight? It's probably time to make the gravy."

"It would be my pleasure, ma'am," he says. He throws Nile a wink _in full view of her parents and her brother_ before following her mother into the kitchen.

**Author's Note:**

> What does Booker's "pretty exceptional sex hair" look like, you ask? [Druidspell](https://druidspell.tumblr.com/) has an excellent idea: <https://www.instagram.com/p/CEZ1qrZFBAS/>


End file.
